


I Think I Was Meant to Know Your Name

by singingintime (laulan)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Starfleet Academy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-10
Updated: 2009-11-10
Packaged: 2019-06-28 05:51:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15701121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laulan/pseuds/singingintime
Summary: Miscellaneous bits and pieces of an alternate universe where Spock and Kirk are contemporaries at Starfleet Academy, meet in their first year, and try (and fail) not to develop feelings for each other.





	1. Measure Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim worries about the _Kobayashi Maru_ ; Spock worries about Jim's sleep schedule.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally a response to the prompt: "Kirk gets a pep talk from Pike *a lot* sooner and joins Starfleet the same year as Spock. They become best friends and try (unsuccessfully) to hide their true feelings from each other."

"You need to sleep."  
  
"Nah. Sleeping is for un-awesome people," Jim tosses back over a yawn, scrolling through his PADD and trying to find a specific tactics article he read last semester. He _knows_ he loaded it--now he just needs to find the fucker, hiding in amongst his million other tabs.  
  
"Sleeping," says Spock from somewhere behind him, "is 'for' people who know that they operate best when they have rested for the optimum number of hours for their species. As you are human, that number should be somewhere between six point five and nine hours, with at least twenty percent spent in REM sleep, as well you know. You have not been sleeping for appropriate lengths of time, Jim--Dr. McCoy agreed when I spoke with him this afternoon."  
  
"Mmhmm," says Jim absently, scowling at his screen. Dammit, where is that stupid thing? He doesn't have time for this--he needs to be cramming for another two hours before he can break, and another fifteen minutes before he can replicate another cup of coffee. (He's calculated the limit he can drink before he's too jittery to function, which is about two cups from where he is now.) His body's flagging, yeah, but if he concentrates on his brain instead of physical stuff, he just feels high and loose with energy, thoughts tethered in an electric cloud to the tactics and weaponry and physics splayed on his screen.  
  
"Jim," Spock says.  
  
Jim stabs a finger at his screen and grimaces when the wrong thing pops up. "What," he mutters.  
  
"Why are you so apprehensive about the _Kobayashi Maru_? There is only so much preparation one can undergo," Spock asks, thin edge of puzzlement crackling in his voice. "At a certain point one must admit to one's limits and simply face a challenge. And the _Kobayashi Maru_ is no more important than any other test you have taken at Starfleet, yet I have never seen you so determined to run yourself into the ground with studying what you may very well not need to know."  
  
"The _Kobayashi Maru_ 's way more important than those other tests," Jim argues, blinking at the words swimming in front of his eyes and willing them to mesh into sense.  
  
He jumps at the unexpected press of Spock's hand on his shoulder, a warm weight pulling him down down down into his body again, into his tired bones and aching muscles and all those things he thought he'd managed to shove away.  
  
"It is only a test, Jim," Spock says softly.  
  
Jim closes his eyes and fights the urge to lean back against Spock--he's exhausted all of sudden, with the reminder of his body. The coffee and stimtea become distant flickers of sensation along the edge of everything, and the rest of world goes all heavy and slow. Fuck. _Fuck._ He'd like so much to forget this whole damn thing, and just curl up in bed with Spock, warm and safe and blocked-out from everyone, but Spock's not interested, and--"it's _your_ test," he mumbles.

He can just _feel_ that damn eyebrow raising behind him. "I do not understand why the fact that I helped code the latest incarnation of the _Kobayashi Maru_ makes it different from any other test administered by Starfleet," Spock says.  
  
Jim turns clumsily to him, squinting up. "Yeah? Well it is, okay? It--" and normally he'd never say something this stupid out loud, but god, his mouth's running away without him, and the words come tumbling out without his consent-- "if I fail this, it's like failing _you_ , okay?"  
  
There's a long, long pause. Jim fights the urge to close his eyes, blinking slowly instead. After a moment--well, it could just be Jim's tiredness, but Spock's face seems to soften a little.  
  
"That statement is highly illogical," he tells Jim finally, but his voice is still hushed, almost gentle. His hand lingers on Jim's shoulder for a moment before he is leaning down and pulling Jim carefully from the chair.  
  
"Dammit, Spock," Jim mumbles, "you--"  
  
"You are not utilizing the full extent of your mental capabilities, Jim, or you would realize that study at this point is fruitless," Spock insists, turning Jim's body to steer him down the hallway and into the bedroom. "You will forget it all if you do not _sleep_ ," he tells Jim; then, "you will injure yourself, if you do not sleep," more softly.  
  
Jim makes a feeble noise, but Spock's hands are firm against his back, pushing him down onto to bed, and Jim can't help but close his eyes when his body hits the flat surface. Fuck, he's so tired. He can already feel his body dragging him into unconsciousness. But there was something important to say, wasn't there?--"what if I'm not good enough?" he forces out, mumbling it into the pillow.  
  
He imagines he hears a quiet "you are" in reply, and feels a hand in his hair, but he's been pulled down into sleep by that point, so who's to say. Could all be a dream.


	2. a. annoyed, b. curious, c. amused, (d.) all of the above

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Spock and Jim met.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original note: From my meme that should have been done bloody ages ago. melmelchan asked for: "I loved that little piece you did for slytherin_gypsy about Kirk and Spock and the Kobayashi Maru. So I'm requesting another piece as a follow-up, or even just one in that same universe." This ended up being a before rather than an after--how Spock and Kirk met in that AU. I hope it satisfies. ♥

Spock arrives twenty minutes early to his first class, as he planned. Although the door is not open, it is unlocked, and Spock hears no lecture noise, so he enters and taps on the lights. He is the first student to enter, and so gets a moment to himself to observe the room.

It is a small lecture hall, he notes--an amphitheater large enough to hold only one or two hundred, if his estimate is correct. About the number he expected, for a class like this. He notes the layout of the room, and carefully chooses a seat in the center of the second row. A prime location to see and hear the professor. He hooks his PADD into the Academy Network and sets about re-reading the chapters they are expected to cover today. He would like to be properly prepared, after all, and he is not quite certain of what to expect.

Other students trickle in slowly, filling up the seats behind him and spreading light chatter through the room. Spock tunes it out, with slight effort. It fascinates him how differently the human cadets appear to approach their education; on Vulcan, the space before a lecture would be filled with silence and study. Here, it's almost as if no one expects the learning to begin until a professor appears.

Complacent, he thinks, casting his gaze over the small sea of people. They expect someone else to take charge of their education entirely. It shall be interesting to observe how many of them will choose to take on the task themselves, and how they will fare against their classmates in space and battle.

His thought process is interrupted by a latecomer shoving himself into the seat beside Spock's. Spock blinks and observes the boy out of the corner of his eye, shifting subtly away to preserve his telepathic distance. The boy appears agitated, breathing heavily and pink with exertion. His uniform is slightly askew, as well; Spock deduces he must have woken late for class.

"Fuck fuck fuck," the boy mutters to himself, digging in his bag. He turns to Spock, suddenly, eyes wide. "Dude, I am so sorry to bother you, but do you have a stylus I could borrow? Mine uh, seems to've decided it wanted to walk off and fuck me over."

Spock raises an eyebrow. He pulls one of three extras from his bag, and holds it out without a word.

"Man, thank you," the boy says, reaching out to take it. "You're my hero. What's your name?"

Spock's eyebrow crawls higher on his forehead, but he is saved the decision of how to answer by the entrance of the professor, a tinyAndorian with silvery hair down to her waist. Finally, he does not let himself think.

"Welcome to Xenolinguistics 258, Non-Verbal Communication," she calls out, brightening the lights. "We'll begin with an assessment quiz. If you would be so good as to take out your PADD and a stylus, please . . . "

-

Spock spends the rest of the period completely focused on the lecture, and he and the cadet do not speak for the duration of the class. The professor goes over time by five minutes; when class lets out, the cadet takes one look at his chronometer and swears violently before rushing out the door without another word, Spock's stylus thrust hurriedly onto his desk.

Spock presses his lips together lightly and hopes the boy will be better prepared the next class, but that is all the thought he spares for the situation; his mind is taken up with a question he plans to ask the professor about a footnote in the chapter she did not cover in her lecture. He puts the boy out of his mind without much effort, and makes his way to the podium.

-

Xenolinguistics 258 is held twice weekly, on Mondays and Thursdays. Spock rather forgets entirely about the cadet in between the first Monday and the first Thursday--after all, there was no time to make a meaningful impression--and settles into the same seat without much thought, flicking through a fascinating 21st-century article on the Large Hadron Collider to pass the time.

He becomes engrossed in the article, and is mildly startled when a loud, unexpected "hey!" is thrown at him from the stairway.

He looks up. The boy from last week coming up to his row, smiling and looking much less out of breath than he was on Monday. Spock raises his eyebrows a fraction of a centimeter, but he is certain some sort of reply is expected of him, whether contact was solicited or not. He settles on a nod.

The boy must take that as an invitation, because he throws his body into the seat beside Spock's, letting loose a rather explosive sigh. "Man, lemme tell you, I am beat," he groans, tossing one of his feet up on the chair in front of him. "I dunno how they expect us to do all this work on time. My physics of weaponry class alone's killing me."

Spock blinks in surprise. "Indeed?" he murmurs noncommittally, fingers straying to the page-turn of the Collider article he was reading.

The boy quirks a smile at him. "You wouldn't believe it. I'm practically drowning in reading--I swear I'm never gonna make it outta here alive. I got like, two hours of sleep last night, max." He grimaces and rolls his shoulders until his back pops. Spock winces internally. "So, what about you?" the boy goes on, oblivious. "What're you taking?"

"Astrophysics 350, a seminar on experimental systems of propulsion, and a course on the programming pidgin Qued-Lostrin and its potential applications when combined with Starfleet weaponry."

The boy whistles, eyes wide. "Color me impressed," he says. "Science track, you gotta be."

Spock nods, wondering absently when the professor will arrive.

"I'm command track, myself."

"I see," says Spock.

"Yeah--besides the weaponry class, I've got a seminar on Xindi War ethics and a survival strategies. Along with your standard, uh, intro to command class. So, I never got your name, by the way."

"It is Spock," says Spock.

"Spock," the boy repeats, carefully. He grins. "Awesome. I'm--"

"Hello all," calls the professor, coming in through the door and dragging a huge projector through the door. "Could I request some assistance, please?"

The boy whips his head around, blinking, and shoves up from his seat when he realizes what's going on. "Sure, professor," he calls, and leaps down at least six stairs. Spock cannot help one eyebrow raising at the reckless action. He watches the cadet shoulder the projector into the classroom and its place, then watches as the teacher manoeuvres the cadet into assisting with the machinery during the lecture, a sort of assistant.

Interesting, Spock thinks.

The cadet is caught up at the end of class helping the professor put away the equipment, and there is no reason for Spock to stay, so he does not.

-

Thoughts of the boy surface unexpectedly that night during his meditation. Spock, distantly surprised, combs through them with his usual patience, trying to parse and diffuse any emotion that may be attached to them.

He finds himself pausing at what he finds. Emotions are not generally simple, of course, but he would not have thought he had any sort of confusion as to how he felt about the boy. If pressed, he would have said that he did not feel anything in particular about him. Examination proves him incorrect. A little knot tangles over thoughts of the cadet: light levels of annoyance, curiosity, and amusement are warring for dominance in Spock's mind.

Spock is not sure exactly which of these he is expected to feel, but it is of no consequence. He lets the emotions attached to thoughts of the boy fade and walls them under with mental fire, as he has always done, and moves on.

The thought seems not to want to let him alone, however; more than once during the following days, he finds himself pausing to consider the cadet.

-

He becomes aware that the boy's choice of seats is not temporary during the third class. The cadet is late again, so there is no time for him to attempt to begin a conversation, but he smiles familiarly at Spock as the professor begins the lecture. Spock nods, as he did the last time, though he is still unsure as to whether he wishes to further the acquaintance. It is not a decision he needs to make now, however. He listens to the lecture, instead--it is about modes of visual communication, more specifically types of sign language, and quite fascinating.

"How many times have you tried to communicate something without words?" the professor asks them. "More than once, I'm sure. But most likely for simple things, yes? Over there and come here--what about concepts? Have you ever tried to give someone a description of something without words?" She smirks into the answering silence. "Well today you shall. Turn to the person sitting next to you, and follow the directions that appear on your PADDs."

Spock flicks through the explanation, which is fairly simple--he is partner B, according to the screen, and therefore will watch partner A (the cadet) attempt to communicate a sentence. He turns to the cadet and sets his PADD down.

The boy sets his PADD down too, clearing his throat and keeping his eyes trained on the screen. Puzzlement is evident in the line of his brow. There is a long, silent moment, and then the cadet makes a hesitant, utterly jumbled hand motion.

Spock raises an eyebrow. The hand gesture has communicated nothing to him whatsoever, and he is sure--ironically--that the cadet can understand this without words by observing Spock's face. As if reading his mind, the boy shakes his head, a bright grin breaking spreading over his face. He glances at the PADD again and laughs silently, presumably at his inability, shaking and curled over himself with mirth.

It is rather startling. Spock has become accustomed to the human practice of wearing emotions "on one's sleeve," as it were, but he does not believe he has yet met a human as openly emotional as this one. It strikes him as sharply strange, like a lute string twanging unexpectedly up out of silence. He finds himself contrasting the boy's utter lack of suppression with his own species' customs, trying to wrap his mind around the reality of the gulf of differences between human and Vulcan.

The boy is thought-provoking, to say in the least. Spock wonders if he will gain further insight into the human's character, this curious boy who makes no attempt to hide himself.

We shall simply see how events play out, he thinks, and goes back to the assigned exercise.

-

In the end, the incident that decides the beginning of their friendship is nothing very dramatic.

He is making his way back to his room from his astrophysics class when he spots a familiar head of blond hair at the corner of the staircase. He does not stop or try to catch the cadet's attention--they are mere acquaintances, after all, and there is no logical reason for Spock to desire such--but he needs to use the stairs, so he continues to head in that direction. He finds himself watching the cadet as he approaches, wondering what has the boy so fascinated as to require him to read his PADD and walk, at the same time.

He has almost reached the staircase, the cadet still slowly and obliviously reading and walking, when someone in a distracted hurry knocks into the boy and sends him flying off his feet.

In the slow instant before impact, Spock finds he has calculated the boy's trajectory, which will bring his head into contact with the left railing. The impact at that speed could, potentially, crack his skull, and is very likely to give him a concussion--

Before he has quite realized it, Spock is reaching out to catch hold of the boy's uniform and yanking him around. His momentum is such that Spock cannot entirely prevent him from plowing into the ground--he manages, however, to ensure that the boy hits only the ground, and does not tumble down the stairs.

"Fuck," the boy exhales shakily, sprawled over. "Thank you, thank you thank you. Thought I was gonna fall down the stairs and break my neck for sure."

"It is almost certain you would have," agrees Spock. "Are you hurt, Cadet?"

"Kirk," the boy says with a crooked grin, "Jim Kirk. And no, thanks to you." He keeps smiling up at Spock, shaking his head. "Seems like you're always saving my ass, man."

"Yes," says Spock, truthfully, "well."

Kirk laughs--again, that surprising flash of bright, utterly alien openness across his face--and levers himself up off the ground, brushing his palms off on his trousers. He curls half his mouth up at Spock. "Look, can I make it up to you somehow? Drink? Dinner? Coffee?"

Spock tilts his head, considering. Kirk's body language reads as hopeful, though Spock could not make a guess as to why--the upturned face, the hands resting loosely at his sides. Spock recalls all he knows about Kirk so far: the way he chews on his thumbnail during class, the utter disarray of his handwriting, his seeming inability to think actions through before committing them. His exuberance.

"I would not be opposed to coffee," he says, finally.

Kirk smiles. "Awesome," he says.


	3. Ad Astra per Aspera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Senior year comes with some rough realizations. (Or, Jim contemplates distance in space and what it really means, and Spock has some important observations to share.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original note: Another piece of the Academy AU I'm not writing, for betweenthebliss on the occasion of her birthday. ♥ Set in their senior year, pre-slash. Title from the Starfleet motto.

When Spock finds him, he's on the roof, beer curled loosely in his fist and eyes on the stars. For once, the night is clear of fog, and so they're bright in the sky, making a pretty picture all laid out above him. Jim's been there an hour, maybe two; long enough that the chill is creeping into his body and making him glad for the hum of alcohol in his blood, keeping him warm.  
  
He hears Spock before he sees him, measured footsteps over tile in that even gait Jim feels he'd recognize anywhere. When he gets within hailing distance, he calls out a "good evening, Jim" in that ever-so-precise diction of his.  
  
"Hey, Spock," Jim tosses back. It's unseasonably cold--sharp enough to turn his breath white--and he's relishing it, relishing the crystalline clear feeling he gets, just breathing out here, counting constellations to himself. He exhales another curl of breath as Spock comes to sit beside him, arranging his legs carefully.  
  
"I assumed you would be at Finney's party," his friend observes.  
  
Jim shrugs, shoulders scraping against roof tile. "Was," he says. He gets an elbow beside his ribs to lever himself up a bit and look at Spock's profile, pale grey in the soft citylight. "Assumed you'd be in the library."  
  
Spock acknowledges this with a nod. "I was. I completed my readings for the week approximately fifteen minutes ago, however, and so thought I might take advantage of the clear night to observe the sky. Instead, I found you." His features are calm, his body language loose and easy--well, as loose as it ever gets, for a Vulcan.  
  
"Liar," Jim murmurs, grinning. He eases himself back down, sliding his hands over his stomach. "You totally hacked into the Academy computers for my communicator signal and tracked me up to the roof, didn't you?"  
  
Spock's response is a quirked eyebrow. "I believe that would be breaking several Academy rules, Jim," he observes mildly.  
  
Jim tips his head back and laughs, long and loud, baring his throat to the stars. It's been a long day; it feels good to let the tension clotted in his body drain up into the sky. It feels nice.  
  
"Stalker," he accuses when he can breathe through it.  
  
Spock doesn't reply, but Jim can feel his amusement like a vibration in the air, see it somehow in the curve of his back. Smiling, he settles back down, and they sit in silence for a while--long enough for Jim to pick out all the Pleiades and trace the length of Eridanus, naming each star by number to himself.  
  
"A penny for your thoughts," Spock says, then, breaking the quiet.  
  
Jim snorts. "Old Earth saying?"  
  
"A useful one, I find."  
  
Jim hums, and closes his eyes for a brief second. "Nothing, really. Space. Particles. The universe."  
  
"Clarify."  
  
From anyone else, that'd be an order, but Jim's known Spock long enough to know it for a request. He shrugs again, squinting up at Venus.  
  
"Just about how far it is," he exhales. "What a light-year really means, in terms of distance. The space between two planets, between electrons. Everything." He rolls over onto his stomach. "You know? Sometimes I just--it's all really fucking big. All this shit we're doing, I mean, the universe--" he breaks off to huff out a laugh. "How the hell do we fit into all of this? Where the hell's our place, in the middle of all this, this space, this stretching onwards forever?"  
  
"The galaxy is not endless," Spock says quietly. Jim can feel those dark eyes fixed on his face.  
  
"Mmm, yeah, but it might as well be," he says. He hunkers down closer on the roof, blinking at the outline of hills in the far distance. "We're atoms in a planet, that's our relative scale to the galaxy," he murmurs. "And how are you supposed to keep up any meaningful personal connections in the middle of all that? Meaningful anything?"  
  
He quirks an eyebrow at Spock, looking over at his body silhouetted against the sky. "You know we might never see each other again after we graduate? Might not see anyone we know. Bones, Uhura--Finney or Mitchell or Bailey. We could be tossed on complete opposite sides of the galaxy and never cross paths again." He breathes out. "Just tiny little points in the plane of all these astronomical wonders."  
  
His words hang in the air, strung between them like an invisible line. Spock is quiet for a long moment; that's fine with Jim. He doesn't have answers to any of this. He's not really upset about it either, just--thinking. It's just a bloom of thoughts that's been whirling in his head lately, bright and insistent. The universe is big; it's a fact he sometimes forgets, that's all. He takes a slow pull of his beer and lets it simmer on his tongue, mind moving slowly.  
  
"I do not believe that will be the case," Spock says, finally. "I am sure that no matter what our assignments or paths in life, we shall meet again."  
  
Jim smiles. "What, is there a Vulcan concept of destiny?" he teases, rolling over on his back again.  
  
"There are debates," Spock says. His mouth turns up at just the very corners--that soft, shadowed hint of a smile that always makes something deep in Jim's stomach curl with heat. "But that is not why I disagree."  
  
"Oh? Why do you, then?" Jim asks, swallowing by habit down over the ache in his gut, and taking another drink.  
  
Spock turns to him. His face is shadowed, and all Jim can see of his eyes is a glitter in the dark.  
  
"Simply because I have a great knowledge of your character, Jim," he says, then, quiet and even. "You are one of the most determined--tenacious, stubborn, headstrong, word it how you will--you are one of the most determined Humans in the galaxy. If a desire is within your power to achieve, I have no doubt you will make it a reality." He shrugs--a move Jim taught him, which always looks a little foreign on his wide shoulders. "I know you."  
  
Jim blinks up at him, struck. He parts his lips to say something, but he's not quite sure what. It's hard to think of something good in the wake of those words, and in the wake of the way Spock spoke them--solid. Calm. Warm.  
  
"So you think we'll meet again?" he ends up asking, and it's--it's softer than he means it to be, more of a question.  
  
"I am certain of it," Spock says simply, and turns his gaze back to the stars with an air of finality.  
  
"Huh," Jim says after a moment, because he doesn't have anything better.  
  
Mind working, he turns back to the sky, joining Spock in watching space revolve around them. The stars stretch on and on and on--that old familiar thrill sparks in Jim, again. So much space for him left to see. So many places to go, still. Some part of him wonders how many of them Spock will see, too; mostly he just watches and thinks and takes it all in, his best friend solid beside him.  
  
For a long time, there's just that: the two of them and the wide open sky, and the city just a distant line of lights below it all.

**Author's Note:**

> Standard disclaimer: I haven't really looked at this story in many years, so there's probably parts of it that would make me wince or that I would disagree with now. There's certainly parts I would write differently! However, I'm not going to go back and edit it (unless something sticks out to me egregiously) because this is meant to be a record of the story I wrote at the time more than anything else. I'm not really looking for detailed constructive criticism on this story for those reasons, but if something in it seems harmful, feel free to let me know and I'll see what I can do to address it. <3


End file.
